


Little SOLDIER Boy

by ashatasha



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Nibelheim, Wutai War, also the farther they are from home too, and i dont know why all the soldiers i meet are like this, bamf!fathers, bamf!mothers, basically bamf!parents, but yknow mainly mothers, if you mess with them be prepared to get rekt, its like nice to fam but assholes to everyone else, tbh my hc that nibelheim is tough and savage af shows a bit, tbh soldiers are either nice or assholes, these people are angry and they are Out For Blood, things i learned in ss: the more stressed they are the more asshole-ish, which is weird af
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 16:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5935219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashatasha/pseuds/ashatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conscription was a conscription, and there was little anyone could do to stop it.</p><p>Even so, they'll be <i>damned<i></i></i> before they let their kids join a pointless war.</p><blockquote>
  <p>[ μ ] - εγλ 0000<br/>Breaking News!  After draft announced in Nibelheim, locals start rebelling against ShinRa Electric Company, resulting in multiple deaths on both sides.  The controversial draft was updated a few months ago, forcing younger men and women from each household to join the Wutai... [cont. page 4]<br/></p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Little SOLDIER Boy

**Author's Note:**

> tbh if any of y'all in the tag are wondering who tf am i and why i'm posting a bunch of random unrelated things, it's because around last month-ish i made a bunch of drafts on ao3 and refused to save them anywhere else in an attempt to motivate myself. it kinda worked?
> 
> also things might seem kinda clunky and stuff and i'm really sorry

The Wutai war was stupid and senseless.

Oh, the propaganda made it sound like a war of honor and courage, but the truth was obvious to anyone who cared to look deeper: it was a war of greed.  All the posters of swords and bullets couldn't hide that initial spark.  Another reactor, another territory claimed by Shinra.  And yet, despite of how lowly she'd regarded Shinra, she'd never thought they would go this far.

"A draft?  Are you serious?"  Maike Roth hissed.  "My son's only sixteen!"

The Turk who made the announcement didn't falter.  "We understand that many of the young men here are underaged, ma'am, but Shinra could use all the soldiers they can get in order to quickly end this war.  The normal exceptions for conscription have been updated, and according to them, your son is eligible for it."  He smoothly ignored the crowd rumbling in protest, although the troopers behind him shifted nervously.

"Unfortunately, it was decided that a single capable person, equal or above the age of 14 from each family, is to be selected for the conscription," the Turk continued, his voice even and calm.  "As Shinra is not officially a government, and because some job-owners may be selected, there will be proper recompense for each family."

"Shinra can't control us!  You just said it, you're not a government!" someone rallied.  The beginnings of a riot was starting; no one in Nibelheim had really liked the company in the first place, and this just about sealed it.  Like hell they were gonna let some greedy, war-mongering electrical company take their own.  "What if our kids die, huh?"

The Turk was silent for a few moments.  The troopers behind him shuffled, and grasped their rifles, much to the anger of the crowd.  "If the estimated number of draftees is not fulfilled, there would be... negative consequences."

Fuck  _that_ shit.  The crowd bristled as a whole, and Maike clenched her fists.

"Are you threatening us, you damn Shinra?  Heathens!  Bastards!" the old man who lived across the inn raged, and the crowd was swept up in a hurricane of angry energy.  "You  _children_ ," he spat, "are playing war!  And you're going to send our sons and daughters?  I say to hell with that!  Get out of our town!"  More yelling broke out, and someone—a young mother, an outsider, loved her son Cloud and basically adopted the neighborhood kids—began the surge forward.  David Cross from down the street was the first to grab a rock and throw it at the Shinra men.  Evelia Castor who hated violence in any form cried as she pushed a surprised soldier into the well behind him.

Maike didn't know who fired the first shot.

 

 

"Five injured, two dead.  Shinra has seven injured, another in critical condition," Claudia Strauss, the one who had led the charge, whispered to her.  The Turks had made it perfectly clear they weren't going to give up without a fight, and even then there was one watching the bakery they were in.  The rest had, apparently, retreated over to the Shinra mansion.

"Who?" Maike asked quietly.  All the blood had made the town square's cobblestones slick, but now everything was clean and polished.  After the sudden riot and forceful subduing, everyone was herded home with a gun to their back and eyes on their movements.  No arrests to be heard of yet, but who knows, really.  "Any arrests?"

Claudia slipped a loaf and two croissants into her basket.  "The mayor's cousin, and old lady Josie.  I haven't seen or heard of any arrests, but no one here gossips to a girl like me, huh?"  There was a wry smile on her charming face.  "You'd think I brought the plague."

Together they paid and walked out.  The Turk watched them cautiously, but Claudia held her head high up and Maike followed.

 _We will not be cowed_ , she thought viciously.   _Break our bones and break our homes, but you can't take a single one of us_.

 

 

There was an arrest later that day.  Maria Kraus had stoned the one in critical condition, who apparently died about an hour before the woman was taken away.  She went with dignity and left her young twins to her father.  A crowd had grown while she was arrested outside her home, and there was mutinous muttering quieted by the wind.  It wouldn't be long before Nibelheim's tentative peace shattered again.  Maria was pushed none-too-gently into a Shinra van, probably to take her to the nearest town under Shinra control. 

"We don't belong to Shinra," Claudia murmured to her neighbor, who murmured it to hers, who murmured it to his, and so on.  "They can't arrest us."

_They're just a company._

_They're just a power far, far away._

_They're powerless_ here.

Somehow, the crowd had moved to create a human barricade.  "Let us pass," the soldier driving demanded impatiently.  "This woman murdered someone, she has to go to jail."

Evelia Castor stood her ground, right in front of the van.  From behind her, her husband Thorsten crossed his arms.  Thorsten was the town's local sheriff, and Heidi had met him as a lawyer hired from outside.  It had been the talk of the town for months.  "Nibelheim has it's own justice system.  We don't need Shinra butting in."

A man got out of the car, scowling dangerously.  His hand was gripped tightly around a rifle, and his white knuckles were the same as the whites of his eyes as he leaned in close.  "Listen, you miserable cunts.  No matter what you do, Shinra's gonna come in and enforce that damn conscription.  You bastards got Johnny killed, and you should be fucking  _glad_ we've got orders not to get our revenge.  Now get out of our damn way!"

With a grunt, he swung his rifle in an arc, shooting into the air.  People scattered, crying out in fear as he held it up threateningly.  Maike nearly tripped in the rush, and then helped up a young man who did trip.  "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he wheezed back.  

In the terror, Shinra had driven off with Maria.

 

 

The next day, all the power cut out.  In front of the townhouse, Turks and infantry set up a small booth full of forms and official registration papers.  Someone whispered into her ear that they had kept a small patrol around the reactor.

Elenor Peters got the old windmills and generators working by noon, and everyone knew how to connect their electrical work to that instead.  Nibelheim had thrived for years without Shinra power, thank you very much.  The Peters family had supplied the electricity in Nibelheim since they figured out how it worked.  Shinra gave them electricity for free, since their reactor was the first Shinra one ever and on technically local property, so the Peters had taken their windmills and remodeled them to grind wheat instead.  It was a piece of cake to hook up the old machinery.

(All of this was relayed to Claudia, who lived on the outskirts, more on the mountain than in the town.  Her son Cloud helped Maike's son Jin set up the electricity for Claudia.  It was a quiet bonding experience while the adults figured out the game plan.)

 

 

On the third day, Shinra blocked the roads, citing "bad infrastructure" and "maintenance".  Unspoken, a siege until Nibelheim gave in.

 

 

On the fourth day, Maike smiled as she slipped a bit of a soluble paste into the well she knew Shinra was using.  No one in town used it, after all, and she didn't want anyone caught in the crossfire.

"They want war, do they?" she asked no one conspiratorially.  

"Then they can have one."

**Author's Note:**

> i have vague ideas and 3 presentations and a test
> 
> some random headcanons! i've always thought of the original Nibelheim, the one before Shinra and everything, to be kinda Nordic, but for most of Nibelheim to be more German. like, original town was further up the mountain, and people just sorta moved in for the monster business, touristing, whatever, and grew roots. so it's like a culture clash with most of modern nibelheim vs claudia and cloud, who aren't really part of those outsider 'natives'. they're true natives of the land, but treated outsider-like because hello? weirdo people come from down the mountains? never really interact much? loners?


End file.
